Thanks for the nice reviews! (: They were very encouraging. Some of you have been submitting reviews about how you dislike Vinera, and I totally understand! If I were Amethine I'd have a hard time trying not to kill her. In a future chapter, I might write about what kind of relationship Caiden and Vinera had back home, because they are an interesting pair.
Okay, please enjoy and leave a review! (:
I scan my surroundings and see that the arena is something I have never seen before. Our plates are 50 feet in the air, I crane my head to see what's behind and find nothing. There's only the empty air behind, with nothing to step on. My curiosity causes my head to look down, and I regret it immediately. There is water below us, but it's not empty. All the horrific monsters you can imagine are in the water, snapping their jaws up at us hungrily.
Alligators the size of a willow, with razor sharp teeth the size of my palm stare up at us with dark eyes. A creature that looks like a snake mixed with a shark is the size of a train and has fiery red fins that flap around. They can jump about two feet in the air, and they too, are waiting for one of us to fall so they can have a meal. I even spot a piranha bigger than a sword. No doubt these are mutations created by the Capitol. The alligators, piranha, and shark/snake-like animals inhabit the deadly waters below us.
I find stepping stones in front of me, they're the only way I get to the Cornucopia. The Cornucopia is lying in the middle of a beautiful meadow. I look past the Cornucopia and see…barns? I can also see trees, so there might be a jungle somewhere there. I look to my right, Gary is three tributes away, and Vinera is six tributes away to my left.
Use the 60 seconds to form a plan. Glen's voice rings in my head. I look around at the terrified tributes and back to the Cornucopia. The stepping stones will probably slow the others down, because they'll be scared to meet their fate of what lies under our plates. I should be quick when conquering the stones and if I handle them with ease, I'll be first to arrive at the Cornucopia.
I look back down and the mutts are going crazy, they make high-pitched screeches that cause me to cover my ears. I pull my hands down and look at the clock above the Cornucopia. 22…21…20…19…18…17
I get into a running position with my right leg forward, and my left leg behind. Latteine from district 6, wipes her eyes, she is standing next to me. I hear her sniffle, which makes me chuckle. You shouldn't be scared of the monsters below, you should be scared of me. I'm your biggest fear.
10…9…8…7…6…5…4...3 This is it.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, may the 61st Hunger Games begin!" Claudius Templesmith's voice rings out and so does the gong. I jump off my plate and onto the first stepping stone. I put my hands out on both sides to balance myself. I jump onto the second and third stepping stone. I look around, most of the tributes are shaking from fear as they take the next leap. I rush myself and jump on the fourth, fifth, and sixth stepping stones. Once I'm on the grass, my strong, lean legs propel me forward.
Tanner from 7, is on the grass too, and he is heading for the big golden horn as well. I continue running, when I finally reach the supplies. But, someone has beaten me. Timothy, from 10 is rummaging through an orange pack. I smirk and look around for a weapon, I spot a black sheath and run over. I pull the medium dagger out and hurl it towards Timothy. It hits him right on the back of his neck and he falls. First kill. He's my first kill, but I was just getting started.
I find a rack full of spears and reach for one, but so does another hand. I turn and find myself face to face with Tanner, he finally arrived. I tackle him and we roll over. I punch him in the face, and he sends a surprisingly powerful punch right back. He gets on top of me and wraps his hands around my neck. I position my legs under him and use both of them to kick him off. It works, because he is off of me, I get up and he does too. He is about to charge towards me when he stops all of a sudden and falls to the ground. I see the axe buried in his back and scowl at his killer.
"He was my kill!" I scream angrily at Vinera. She ignores me and chases Augustina, the girl from 5.
I pull the axe out of Tanner's back and throw it at Bonnie, the girl from 10, who has just stepped onto the meadow. It buries itself in her chest and she drops to the ground.
I run back to the supplies and pull the knife out of Timothy's nape. I spot Latteine hiding behind a sleeping bag with her knees tucked in front of her. She gets up and puts her hands up in surrender. "Please, don't!" she pleads.
"I'm doing you a favor," I say with a smirk.
She gasps as I stab her in the shoulder, I stab her again and feel my head being pulled backwards. Someone is pulling my hair. I slash backwards and hear an agonizing scream. I have just sliced off Nick's hand. Nick is the boy from district 6, Latteine's district partner. He screams again, looking at the amputated hand that is on the ground right now. Blood squirts from the stump and I grin evilly.
"Never interrupt me," I say and stab him in the abdomen over and over again. I hear someone crying and turn to see that I'm not done with Latteine yet. She is bleeding profusely, from the stab wounds on her shoulder, I end her suffering by stabbing her in the heart. I grab a spear from the rack and look for a target. Maggie from 11 is running towards the barns. I aim and throw my spear in front of her, since she's running, the spear will make contact with her. The spear goes through her head and she falls. I jog over to her body and take the spear, because if the hovercraft takes her body, it's going to take my spear too.
I look around for my allies. Caiden is finishing off the boy from 11, Feltrix. Marina pulls her arrow out of the body of the boy from 3, Bolton. Vinera retrieves the axe I threw at Bonnie and Evan stabs an injured Sequoia, the girl from 7. I look around for Gary and find him putting some stones in his pouch.
I run around looking for someone, but I can't find anyone to kill. Then I see him, Calvin from district 12 looking at the contents of his pack. What a stupid boy! He chooses to look through his pack behind the Cornucopia, the camp for the Careers? Someone people have no intelligence. He looks up at me. I am the last thing he sees because my spear gets him right on the chest, I retrieve my weapon and go back to the front and watch as Gary kills Amber, the girl from district 8. She's the last kill in the bloodbath, because I don't see anyone else.
"Let's move the bodies," says Caiden and we all agree.
I drag Latteine's body out of the Cornucopia and leave her in the pile of bodies the boys have created. We get all the bodies in the pile and leave the area in order for the hovercraft to collect the bodies. I stop for a moment and stand in front of the dead pile. Tributes who die in the bloodbath are lucky, I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. When we kill during the bloodbath, we make a quick so we can find another victim. The tributes we found when we go hunting are unfortunate. We're going to give the audience a good show and make their death slow and painful.
When the hovercraft collects them all, the canons start to fire, one by one. 11 tributes died in the bloodbath, which means there are 6 more hiding. I remember seeing Mina from district 12, I think I caught a glimpse of her running when I hacked Nick's hand off. I wonder how she managed to escape alive.
We walk back to camp and decide to look through the supplies.
So far we've found sleeping bags, a bag of apples, canned goods, a lot of weapons, and so much more. We each get our own pack. My pack contains a set of throwing knives, a small container of beef covered in tomato sauce, a flask, and an expandable baton that's five feet when it's not expanded.
"Amethine, look what I found." Marina says. I look over and see her holding a dark blue sheath that can hold a dozen of arrows.
"It's a sheath," I tell her.
"I know, but I already have one and since you use spears, maybe you can put them in here and wear it so they would be easier to hold." she says.
"That's a good idea," I say and walk over and get it. "Thanks," I say and she smiles. "You're welcome,"
I examine the sheath. The fabric is soft and stretchy and can carry all of my spears, since they all have thin shafts. I put the sheath down and gather all of the spears, all together I have fourteen spears. I slide them all in the sheath with the spearhead facing up. I was right, the sheath can hold all of them. I make the sheath of spears lean against a black crate full of canned goods. I look in the crate and find that some are missing. The tribute must've taken about three or four cans.
"What a sneaky little son of a-"
"Did you find anything interesting?" Evan asks. I turn around. "Yeah, I found that a tribute stole some of our food," I say.
"It's okay, we can always hunt." says Evan. I sneer at him as he walks away. Damn him for being optimistic. We're in the arena, there's nothing lovely to look forward to, besides winning.
"I found a tent," Gary announces. I look at the large orange tent that he found, there are four dark pins that are used to hold the corners of the tent down.
"Is there only one?" I ask. "I think so," Gary says.
"Who gets to sleep in it?" Sebastian asks, appearing next to me.
I shrug. "How about we go by districts?" Sebastian suggests.
"Sounds good," Marina says.
"I bet Amethine likes this idea because she gets to sleep in it first with Evan," Vinera says. I glare at her. "No I don't," I say.
"Don't get all defensive, we know you like him." she says.
"I do not!" I deny. I then realize that this is the reaction she wants from me. Two can play that game.
"I think I'll ask Caiden if he wants to sleep in the tent with me," I say and look over at Caiden, who's sharpening his stars. Vinera's eyes widen, but she tries to hide her jealousy, causing me to smirk.
"Since when do you like Caiden?" she asks.
"Oh believe me, I don't. But it won't hurt to have some fun in the games, would it?" I ask. I overcome the urge to gag of disgust. She glares at me and walks over to Caiden. Evan closes the black crate and sees the sheath full of spears.
"Nice," he comments. "It was Marina's idea." I say.
"She's smart." he says and I agree.
"Gary found a tent, and tonight you and I are going to sleep in it. We're going by districts." I tell him.
"It's okay, I don't want to sleep in the tent. I'll just grab a sleeping bag and sleep in the Cornucopia with the others." he says.
"Oh well, more room for me." I shrug.
We put all the supplies inside the Cornucopia all the way at the back so no one can steal it when we're sleeping. Fortunately, there is still space for everyone to sleep in their sleeping bags. I sit on the grass and watch the sun set.
"It's so beautiful," Marina says.
"Yeah," I say.
"Back home in district 4, I would get out of the training center just to watch the sun set," Marina tells me, not tearing her eyes away from the sun.
"How long did you train each day?" I ask.
"Eight hours. Then after training I would go swimming." she says.
"How do you know Sebastian?" I ask, suddenly interested in hearing about her life.
"He was the only one that believed in me. The other careers that trained made fun of me, and said that I didn't have what it took to survive in the games." she says looking at her toes.
"I had the same problem back home. But instead of getting teased, I was underestimated." I say.
"Why?" asks Marina.
"Blonde hair, blue-green eyes. They thought I was a rich snob, but they were wrong. I train just as hard as everyone else."
"You sure sure showed them," she says. I grin. "You bet." We decide to join the other who are just stuffing more things in their pack.
"Where are you going to set up the tent?" Marina asks.
"Probably somewhere near, right here well be fine." I gesture towards the area in front of the mouth of the Cornucopia.
"Why not set it up at the edge of the grass? You know where your tent might fall into the water," Vinera says. She has been pissing me off lately, and I am trying to keep my cool.
I walk up to her, not breaking the eye contact. I'm daring her to challenge me. She may tease me and make all those comments, but she can't kill or beat me at hand to hand combat.
"No thanks," I say. She raises her eyebrows at my bravery. "By the way, don't mess with my kills. They're my victims." I spat. I haven't forgotten about what she did, killing Tanner when she knew I was about to.
"Don't get mad, just because I outshone you," she says. Evan starts to get up, seeing that this may turn into a duel. He's damn right, if this girl wants to challenge me, I'm not backing down.
"Aww, is the golden goddess getting mad?" she coos.
I shove her back and she stumbles backwards and falls. When she gets up, she tries to run for me but Caiden holds her back. I bet the audience is loving this, but I don't care about them. The only thing I care about is breaking Vinera into pieces.
I see this as my chance. She's restrained, but I'll attack Caiden, forcing him to let go of her and then I'll take care of Vinera. I charge at them when somebody knocks me down.
"Get off me!" I scream at Evan. He has a hard time grabbing my hands and holding them together so I can't punch him. I try to pry my hands free to no avail. He pulls me up and takes me to the back of the Cornucopia.
"Let go of me!" I yell.
"Stop it! You both look like children fighting over a piece of candy!" he yells back.
He must've seen the anger in my eyes because he tries to dodge my kick to his balls, but fails. He groans from the pain. I try to free my hands again, but he still has them in an iron grip.
Marina jogs over and joins us. "You guys need to stop fighting Amethine, we could loose some sponsors," she says. She has a point. I remember watching previous games, and I enjoyed how the careers worked together. They teased each other sometimes, but they made a lethal team.
Strength comes in numbers. I remember one of the trainers telling us back home. They're right. Marina and Evan are right. This is stupid. To avoid looking like an idiot, which I probably already have made myself look like, I take a deep breath and turn to Evan. "I'm fine now," I say and he lets go of my hands. We walk back to the front. Vinera has calmed down as well.
Caiden nods his head at me. Vinera rolls her eyes. "Sorry," she mutters. I nod and look away, trying to forget about that stupid thing. "If you hate being shoved, stop making those immature comments," I tell her. I've shoved her twice now, the first time was before I got on stage for my interview and this is the second time.
I grab my sheath of spears and examine each one. What beautiful spearheads the Capitol have provided me. Some have a diamond shaped blade, other blades are the shape of leaves, and triangles. The ones in my sheath are small, maybe 25 inches long. We have longer ones that are about two hundred inches long. I think we have six? Or is it 9? I go into the Cornucopia and see them lying on top of a black crates. We have 8. I then notice the sky.
Darkness is falling. I turn to the others.
"Let's go hunt some tributes,"
I'm sorry it isn't really long. I took your reviews about Vinera seriously and made Amethine get tired of it and nearly beat her. But, sponsors won't like it if some of the careers aren't getting along. They will enjoy the drama, but like Amethine trainers said strength comes in numbers. Please don't forget to review. Thanks for reading! (:
Do you ship Clato? Well you're going to love this video! watch?v=hVwk3sYcMVk The quality isn't perfect, but I almost cried when I watched it. You should check it out. It's sad, it's about Clove getting reaped and Cato volunteers to save her and comforts her. In the arena, Clove leaves the alliance. I don't want to spoil the rest, so go check it out! (: